Broadcasters are worried that FCC chief Tom Wheeler is planning to resurrect an agency proposal that would require broadcasters to unwind joint sales agreements within two years. Wheeler, according to the plan, also would seek comment on what do about shared services agreements.
NAB Board Presses FCC To Save SSAs
National Association of Broadcasters board members made the lobbying rounds at the FCC Tuesday to defend shared services and joint sales agreements that broadcasters routinely use to save money by combining key station operations, sources said.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who was among the top agency officials that the broadcasters visited, has signaled his intent to beef up agency scrutiny of the sharing agreements.
Industry communications attorneys are concerned that Wheeler is planning to resurrect an agency proposal that would require broadcasters to unwind joint sales agreements within two years. Wheeler, according to the plan, also would seek public comment on what to do about shared services agreements that don’t include JSAs.
Paul Karpowicz, president of Meredith Corp.’s local media group, who was part of the NAB board lobbying delegation, declined comment on the specific points raised during the agency sessions — which included visits with FCC Commissioners Michael O’Rielly, a Republican, and Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat.
“Our agenda was to get to know the chairman and talk to him about his views for the future,” Karpowicz said. “We spent most of our time getting to know each other.”
Karpowicz declined to identify who the other NAB delegation members were, who were already in town for an association board meeting.
BRAND CONNECTIONS
Dennis Wharton, an NAB spokesman, also declined comment.
But an FCC spokesman confirmed that NAB President-CEO Gordon Smith also met with Wheeler on Monday.
The spokesman declined to comment on any agency plans to tamper with the JSAs or SSAs.
In a Jan. 30 visit with advisers to FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, NAB attorneys also made the case for JSAs, pointing out that separately-owned cable operators commonly sell ad time together.
“It would be both anticompetitive and fundamentally unfair to prevent or restrict local broad TV stations, but not their direct competitors, from selling advertising time jointly,” the NAB lawyers said, according to a disclosure document filed at the agency.
Comments (8)
Michael Castengera says:
February 5, 2014 at 9:31 am
JSA’s and SSA’s are the only way some stations can survive. Rather that trying to eliminate the JSA’s and SSA’s, they should count “sidecar” companies as part of the parent company. They are just fronts to circumvent ownership rules, then using the JSA/SSA’s to combine operations. Eliminating the distinction between sidecar companies and its parent would require some stations to be divested, but would help eliminate JSA/SSA’s that are just revenue grabs, but preserve them for the stations that need them to survive.
Ellen Samrock says:
February 5, 2014 at 11:49 am
This is typical of the FCC’s lopsided approach at regulating broadcasting. One side wants to save AM radio from an inevitable death, the other wants to destroy broadcast television just as the industry is innovating new digital technologies and pushing into new revenue-generating areas. SSA’s is one crucial way in which TV broadcasters can survive (and doing so without any help from the Commission).
E B says:
February 5, 2014 at 12:16 pm
Oh, please. There are plenty of people perfectly able to use these broadcast licenses in a profitable and community-serving way. The big broadcasters, having whipped the “properties” up a speculative frenzy, got in over their heads. They got a sympathetic FCC to look the other way while these illegal and unfair monopolies were dreamed upand implemented. .
Teri Green says:
February 5, 2014 at 1:56 pm
If a station can’t survive on it’s own let it go under. Then someone else who can make it work will. Or if the frequency is blank repack it and sell it off.
Angie McClimon says:
February 5, 2014 at 3:49 pm
Ditch JSAs and SSAs. If these owners can’t run these stations themselves, they should not be in the business.
Tim Pardis says:
February 5, 2014 at 5:09 pm
I have to agree with the last three posters. Most of the stations in markets of any appreciable size or importance are owned by a handful of large media corporations. None of these stations are loosing money. They just want to make more money in order to pay top tier executives lavish salaries and guarantee value to their shareholders. Funny how the Communications Act does not mention the profit of station owners or the satisfaction of their shareholders.
Ellen Samrock says:
February 5, 2014 at 6:19 pm
I find it just plain weird how people who have no love for broadcast television can spend their time trolling sites like these spraying their bitter venom on those who do or are in the business. These are the same kind of people who would think nothing of harassing a reporter or, worse, endangering that reporter’s life while he/she is trying to work. It may be surprising for these people to learn that a lot of stations, particularly in small markets, work on thin margins (and this is true of both radio and TV). JSAs and SSA’s are a legitimate way for television stations in these markets to serve their community without habitually going into red to do it.
Tim Pardis says:
February 6, 2014 at 4:04 pm
D BP – you make some harsh presumptions based on the posts which, in my case, are totally false. I have been a broadcaster for 40+ years. Twenty five of those were spent working at local television stations as an engineer (twenty of those as an engineering manager). I left due to my frustration with “scanner news” where the language was dumbed down to a third grade level and the stories that were selected for coverage were designed to bring the maximum amount of viewers to the screen as opposed to reporting on hard issues that affected their communities. Over time, the stations that were locally owned and committed to their communities were bought up by large corporate media companies who were/are more interested in their profits than serving the communities in which they are located (read: public interest, convenience and necessity). This is why investigative journalism and locally produced programming have almost – if not entirely – disappeared from the landscape…it is too expensive and they conflicts with programming that could make more money. Many of these large media corporations now use the SSA’a and JSA’s to circumvent ownership rules so that they can reduce expenses (read: jobs) and reap larger profits. I have no qualms with this type of arrangement in the small markets which you mention. It is the larger markets where most of this activity occurs. In example: Belo recently sold its stations to Gannet. In the “old days” Gannet would have been forced to sell one of the stations in those markets where both companies owned a station. But to circumvent the ownership rules, Jack Sander was taken out of mothballs (recall he retired in 2004 and was honored at NAB that year) and set up a phantom company to operate the conflicting stations in St. Louis and Phoenix (these are NOT small market stations). The result – in essence – is that Gannet owns and operates two stations in two major markets. From my POV, those large cities would be better served if different licensees owned the second stations as this would be true competition. But the corporate/profit mantra states otherwise…enlarge the margin at all costs. It is good for the company but, not necessarily the viewers who collectively own the frequencies LICENSED to the broadcasters.